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A Further Perspective
Burglar Rolls Snake-Eyes in Vegas
A story with a happy ending.
KLAS-TV in Las Vegas reports that in the early morning hours of Tuesday a man in his seventies shot and killed an armed intruder who had just broken into the man’s home along with a couple of armed partners-in-crime.
After dialing 9-1-1 and alerting police to the home invasion, the man shot and killed one of the intruders. Police found the late burglar in the back yard of his intended victim’s home next to his (the burglar’s) gun. Two other miscreants, possibly three, fled the homeowner’s field of fire. On their arrival, police captured one of the would-be burglars. But a third scholar, described as a “Latin male,” escaped and is being sought by police.
This is what the right to bear arms is mainly about. Not hunting, not collecting, not target shooting, not keeping war souvenirs (though these are legitimate endeavors that the government has no business putting an end to). But the right and ability to protect oneself against predators, with deadly force when necessary, as it clearly was in this case, is paramount.
The homeowner who is invaded by someone intent on killing or doing great bodily harm to him or his family, and who does not have a gun, has limited options on what to do with the time remaining to him. Of course he can (1) dial 9-1-1 and have a polite conversation with a civil servant who doesn’t know him and who can’t very much help him anyway. But he might better use his time by (2) getting right with God, then bending over and kissing his rear-end good-bye, because there’s just about zero chance the cops will arrive in time to save it. This is no rap on the cops. Just an understanding that if the predator is at the door and the cops are blocks, perhaps miles, away, the bad guy is holding all the cards, along with whatever weapon he brings to the occasion.
Even though this story with a happy ending took place in Las Vegas, there’s no mention on what the line is on whether or not the fugitive, the burglar who gave his life for his vocation, and the third loser who was jugged, are American citizens. But of course if President Obama and Marco Rubio have their way, it won’t matter if these guys are citizens. They will remain with us forever.
Las Vegas Police say the homeowner will not be charged in the shooting. As is proper. This reflects the sanity that remains in America outside many of our larger cities, misruled by liberal loonies, where armed homeowners (and apartment dwellers) have more to fear from the criminal justice system than burglars do.
And don’t even get me started on the UK. For the length and breadth of this once great sceptered idle, law-abiding citizens are completely disarmed because politicians of all of the country’s major parties (to the extent any party in the UK can be described as major) have made the care, comfort, and convenience of predatory criminals a fetish. The seat of Mars is now a demi-paradise for aggressive yobs and burglars who have no fear of unarmed citizens, or of a political establishment that acts as their enabler.
The poster boy for current insanity in the royal throne of kings is one Tony Martin of Emneth, in Norfolk. In the late summer of 1999, Martin shot and killed one intruder and wounded another in circumstances not unlike those Tuesday night in Las Vegas. His reward for protecting himself? A conviction for murder and life imprisonment.
After the Martin shooting and arrest a police spokesman offered this breath-taking analysis: “We can’t have people take the law into their own hands.”
During the decades when gun control in the UK went from reasonable to strict, to stricter, to absolute — now the UK’s gun control laws are as tight as those of Cuba — the UK went, as anyone with any sense could have predicted, from the most peaceful country in Europe to the most crime-ridden. Potential UK tourists take note: one is more than twice as likely to be assaulted in the UK as in the United States. Theft is rampant and police do little about it. Oh, and by the way, gun crime is up.
Apparently it’s more acceptable to the British establishment that criminals take the law into their own hands than that the good citizens of a once civilized country retain the right to protect themselves against murder and mayhem.
The UK is much further down the left rabbit hole than America, including in the area of gun control vs. citizens’ rights. So Americans like the gent in Las Vegas are not yet in danger of being jailed for protecting themselves against violent evil-doers. But give the Obamas and the Feinsteins of the world enough time, and that patriot in Las Vegas, as well as the rest of us, may have more to worry about than armed burglars.
About the Author
Larry Thornberry is a writer in Tampa.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (43) | Leave a comment
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Appleby| 2.8.13 @ 7:14AM
Same thing here in Canada. You're a store owner who's working early in the morning and a would be thief is breaking down your door -- you throw a handful of cooking spices in his face (this actually happened) and YOU are arrested and charged with assault. Our local landmark case was the arrest, incarceration, trial and eventually exoneration of a Chinese shop owner who tackled a serial shoplifter and held him for the police -- and the police made a deal with the shoplifter to testify against the shop owner. Fortunately, even in Canada where people only raise their voices at hockey games, the outraged community made the courts back down, and led to FINALLY the promulgation of a "Citizen's Self Defence" law which a lot of Canadians were amazed to discover had not existed until then. (P.S. to Canadians: you have no property rights either. All that stuff you think you have is actually in the AMERICAN constitution.)
Bob K| 2.9.13 @ 12:46PM
Regarding the descendants of the Torys who left the USA for Canada during the American Revolution; one is reminded of Exodus 20 verse 5 wherein the sins of the fathers are visited on the children unto the 3rd and 4th generations. And in this case it is even longer than that!
Frank Drackman| 2.8.13 @ 7:14AM
Larry(good Jewish name BTW)would the story be any different if the burglars hadn't been armed? I'd guess Nevada is pretty reasonable on Homeowner's rights, but what if this had happened in Southeast DC?
And THIS is one of the reasons "Background" Checks should fail bigger than "New" Coke. Every one I know has a "Throwdown" gun (I think I first saw this on "Kojak") a cheap, unregistered, untraceable gun bought from someone you don't know, and perfect for...............
umm "Hunting"! or "Skeet Shooting"
Frank "Dead Eye" Drackman
Albert Constantine Jr.| 2.8.13 @ 8:01AM
I did a static display one time for an Open House at my agency. I assembled 16 or so handguns that our officers had seized; half were Air Soft pistols, BB guns, starter pistols, and the other half were a collection of RG revolvers; HiPoint, KelTec, Bersas and Glock autos, with a Walther PPK thrown in for the James Bond fans.
Viewers were challenged to identify which were real and which were not (none had the orange tips that criminals remove or color over). No one (judges, lawyers, officers, members of the public) was 100% correct, and most were just as likely to identify a real firearm as a fake than the reverse.
(Of course, Doctor, I’m not suggesting here that you purchase a cheap, non-serially numbered realistic looking airsoft as your throw down; but if you need an expert witness to testify at your trial or other hearing how easy such a mistake could be made believing that the toy was a deadly weapon, I could be made available).
TLP| 2.8.13 @ 11:11AM
But, you're so busy, all day.
You are a good friend.
Occam's Tool| 2.10.13 @ 4:02AM
I lived in a British Commonwealth country for a year. It is a different legal system based on a profoundly different premise: the rights of the Common Man have been wrested from the Sovereign, who began with absolute power. Any non-wrested rights still reside with the sovereign.
In the USA, we believe that the people are sovereign, and the capabilities of the government that are not spelled out as belonging to government reside with the individual.
Makes for profoundly different views of the world. Since my job in both places was to determine when a man was too insane to maintain his rights to avoid involuntary treatment, I got quite a feeling for this difference.
TLP| 2.8.13 @ 12:17PM
Contest at William Tucker's Story.
It's right after Arnie's screed.
It's kind of a Contest "Lite".
Albert Constantine Jr.| 2.8.13 @ 3:24PM
I've made my contribution. Now, it's off to Happy Hour, to see if I can dream up an appropriate tune to set it to later.
Frog in Uniform | 2.10.13 @ 12:51PM
I'm not sure I got it right from what I just read, but I'll strongly advise against putting fake guns, airsoft crap, bogus pistols in the hands of a burglar you just killed.
In Frogland, as in any Western country, we have a forensic unit that will thoroughly dissect the evidence and search for whatever damning clues you have left on it, and you just can't win this game, most of all in a situation of stress (killing somebody is no ordinary business), knowing the neighbors are gonna call 911 and the cops are about to show up at any moment. My friendly advice is to have a seat and calm down. You have a few minutes window when you can decide whether or not call the police. If you live on the 7th floor of a project in the middle of a crowded neighborhood, tampering with the evidence and pulling a Dexter Morgan on the corpse will be over your capacities, but if you live in a remote place with a forest or fields in the vicinity, this is something that you should consider. My best friends always told me if such a thing happened to me, to call them on their cell phones first instead of dialing the department number! We know how our justice works and we're not proud of it, and at times we gotta do the right thing...
Cobalt| 2.8.13 @ 8:18AM
A house is full of lethal weapons that could be used by a criminal to harm a homeowner.
Knives, hammers, screwdrivers, rope for hanging, matches and gasoline, water for drowning, etc.
When the police arrive, they might just find the burglar dead, and with a large kitchen knife (with hs fingerprints) near his hand.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 2.8.13 @ 7:39AM
“After the Martin shooting and arrest a police spokesman offered this breath-taking analysis: ‘We can’t have people take the law into their own hands’.”
What I believe my law enforcement colleague across the pond meant to say was “We can’t have people take their rights into their own hands”.
The fundamental right is to protect one’s life and home from assault by others. Britain has transitioned from a kingdom where the rights of individual subjects to live responsible lives as free people were once respected into one where the government is the source of limited sustenance, but the weak may prey on the strong without much fear of consequence. For those familiar, a similar model to this is how many of our more poorly-run jails and prisons are structured. Inmate is probably a more accurate term for the residents of the UK than citizen.
For those who disagree, ask anyone who has done time about the quality of their free healthcare.
Harry the Horrible| 2.8.13 @ 9:51AM
Based on the behavior of the LAPD and other California cops as they pursue one of their murderous own, I think "the Law" is a hell of a lot safer in my hand than it is in the cops'.
Torrence PD officers tried to MURDER to women in "a case of mistaken identity." The truck was the wrong type and the wrong color. And I wonder how easy it is to mistake to women for a 6 ft, 270 lb ex-cop?
TLP| 2.8.13 @ 11:39AM
They're worse than Inmates.
They're like that one guy in: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, who was in the Nut House, VOLUNTARILY.
Same thing.
Occam's Tool| 2.10.13 @ 4:04AM
Albert: see my comments above. Concur with your assessment of current situation, but we may disagree on how they got there. In my view, the rot was always potentially inherent in their system.
Ours is being twisted and perverted to try to do the same thing to us.
Maxwell| 2.8.13 @ 8:10AM
Please don't try this while living in New Jersey. If someone breaks into your home you MUST get out of your house!
C. S. P. Schofield| 2.8.13 @ 10:43AM
Or shoot, shovel, and shut up.
Moe Blotz| 2.8.13 @ 4:00PM
Not I. If an intruder enters my humble abode without my permission, he made a big mistake. I have not a gun, but my other implements, not to mention my bare hands, will suffice to ensure that whoever sneaks in will leave feet first.
Moe Blotz| 2.8.13 @ 4:01PM
My reason for such a post is that I live in New Juhsey.
Pecos Pete| 2.8.13 @ 8:20AM
Now come the trolls: Cyber-Warriors for Obama
This thread will be heavily trolled once The Village Idiots wake up.
I live 40 miles, minimum, from any police "office" and can expect them to arrive, at the earliest, in an hour. My armament is more than adequate for a short lesson to intruders in home-owner defense.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 2.8.13 @ 9:18AM
Have you noticed that they're in shorter supply this week? It is almost as if Jack London was left behind for a rear guard action, while Soros sent Arnie, Purp and the others for a reindoctrination session.
Of course, now that I've posted this, I wouldn't be surprised if they all resurfaced like the proverbial devil, who when spoken of jumps up.
TLP| 2.8.13 @ 11:52AM
As we don't know where any of these guys are being kept Under Observation by Pre-Psychiatric Students? They could be anywhere in the eye of one of these Storms, and the Atmospheric Interference could be messing with their DNC Implants, and they don't know what to write.
p.s.: Is something going with Pesco, that he's making plans for a Last Stand against the Police?
We'd better start practicing our lines for the Reporters: "He was a nice guy. Quiet. He kept to himself, and seemed content to lose himself in his (some would say Gay) Poetry, his Love of Show Tunes (another sexual Red Flag) and the time he spent Milking his Horses.
I never understood the last one, but I never thought it would lead to this, either.
No more questions.
Can't you see I'm grieving?
Denver Todd| 2.8.13 @ 9:56AM
Please note that whenever something like a rape happens to a woman in larger cities, the press will report that women are responding to the threat by taking karate classes. So, that will be my contribution to this thread: facing a gun? Karate Kid!
C. S. P. Schofield| 2.8.13 @ 10:44AM
Any woman who is in favor of gun Control hasn't given it enough thought.
lost| 2.8.13 @ 10:51AM
Not Karate Kid. Need to be more like Remo Williams.
markenoff| 2.8.13 @ 10:20AM
If God didn't want me to use deadly force to defend my family He wouldn't have made me love them so much.
Frank Drackman| 2.8.13 @ 10:33AM
Love the condescension of Joe "I went to the University of Alabama so I'm Conservative" Scarborough et al on the futility of mere citizens repelling a Tyranical Federal Government with small arms...
The North Vietnamese did pretty well using AK-47's...
No if I could just find a good second hand T-62...
Frank
Drunken Sailor| 2.8.13 @ 12:38PM
Someone needs to tell poor old Joe, once you take down the Tyranical Federal Goverment agent with your handgun, you can add his semi (or full) auto weapon to your arsenal. As in the FP-45 Liberator.
Bob K| 2.9.13 @ 1:05PM
Since we are in the early stages of the Balkanization of America because of our immigration policies we should learn a lesson on how the people in the Balkans have protected themselves from a gun controlling government.
They wrap their rifles and pistols in plastic wrap, along with extra clips and ammunition and bury them where they can be quickly accessed in times of need.
I learned this years ago from an acquaintance who had arranged a hunting and fishing trip in parts of old Yugoslavia. He smuggled in a clip for a specific rifle and it helped to pay for a large portion of his trip's expenses.
Houdini| 2.8.13 @ 11:23AM
Perhaps one day the media will finally let the public in on the truth about law enforcements role in protecting the folks. Law enforcements job is to protect the potential victim after you......that is, after they draw the chalk outline around your body.
TLP| 2.8.13 @ 12:17PM
Contest at William Tucker's Story.
It's right after Arnie's screed.
It's kind of a Contest "Lite".
Solo| 2.9.13 @ 12:25PM
Right you are!
It's important to wrap your mind around the fact that the police don't carry guns in order to protect you.
They carry them in order to protect themselves.
Despite the best intentions of some, the primary role of the police is to zip up the body bag and fill out the paperwork...and then hope that the perp who killed you gets arrested for shoplifting or something.
As a law abiding citizen, each of us has to learn what most criminals already know about the police:
You are on your own.
Remember...when seconds count, the police are only minutes away.
PolishKnight| 2.8.13 @ 11:44AM
Devil's advocate here: The UK does allow citizens to have certain firearms but makes it a hurdle to do so. This is the goal of "gun control" laws: To "control" them via regulatory hoops that eventually it appears to be prohibition. Then when a right winger says "people in the UK can't get guns" they can snidely say "Oh, sure they can! You ought to read you ignorant buffoon!"
In the meantime, ask a Georgetown law student to either put her own money up for $20K a year contraceptives she doesn't need or just go to the free clinic and pick up a box of condoms and they freak out over the "right wing taliban denying women access to healthcare!!!"
Josef Stalin played a similar game in Ukraine: He didn't "kill" anyone, the "famine" did. Oh, and people couldn't grow, buy, or keep food. But not his fault. They just didn't have the right forms...
Jim Adcox| 2.8.13 @ 11:49AM
Thornberry writes: "This is what the right to bear arms is mainly about. Not hunting, not collecting, not target shooting, not keeping war souvenirs (though these are legitimate endeavors that the government has no business putting an end to). But the right and ability to protect oneself against predators, with deadly force when necessary, as it clearly was in this case, is paramount."
Amendment II declares:
"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
Seems like Thornberry's point should be modified to state, "This is what the right to bear arms is SECONDARILY about," since use of deadly force against criminal trespass by a private-citizen criminal is not the focus or intent of the Second Amendment. Granted, being able to defend one's own property and life against the private-citizen criminal is a nice secondary bonus which saves taxpayers money.
Quartermaster| 2.8.13 @ 12:47PM
True. The founders viewed all able bodied males as teh Army. All were liable for service and were required to maintain arms adequate for the purpose. The result is that crooks could face deadly force for their actions because we aren't always at war, fortunately.
markenoff| 2.8.13 @ 1:03PM
I would argue that the gentleman in Vegas was exercising his 4th Amendment rights:
"Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
Notice how it says "secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures," but does not say secure from whom. So unlike the 1st Amendment which is explicitly a restrainst on the federal government and similar to the 2nd Amendment the rights under the 4th Amendment are arguably not just rights guaranteed against the actions of government agents but against everyone including criminals. And, obviously, if you have the right to be secure in your person and your house against searches and seizures you have the right to the means to prevent such searches and seizures......firearms.
George True| 2.8.13 @ 3:00PM
One nit to pick in an otherwise good article, Mr Thornberry. As Jim Adcox has already brought up, the Second Amendment is about the right of the citizens to have the means to protect against government tyranny, either a foreign invading force, or a domestic standing army unleashed upon citizens by a government turned tyrannical.
Not only was this the express purpose that the founders had in mind, but we know from their other writings that their intent was for the citizenry, or the militia at large, to possess weapons equal to the firepower possessed by any standing army or government forces. At an absolute minimum, this would include by today's standards fully automatic rifles such as M-16's, Kalashnikovs, BAR's, SAW's, etc.
Things such as home defense and hunting were only peripheral to the main intention of the founders, which was preserving the citizens' ability to fight and win against a federal force controlled by a tyrannical government. As Judge Napolitano recently stated on Fox News, the Second Amendment is not about the right to shoot deer (or home invaders), it is about the right to shoot tyrants.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 2.8.13 @ 9:04PM
At the time, a home invader was generally considered to be the same as a marauding Indian, or other vagabond; all were worthy of being dispatched.
Who Knows?| 2.8.13 @ 3:08PM
Whatever happened to Charlton Heston’s guns?
Who pried them out of his cold, dead hands?
He IS dead, right?
Fight on!
Right on!
Guns aren’t like humans. They don’t live and die, and like a well kept car, can essentially go on forever.
Then there are all those knives and hammers!
Moe Blotz| 2.8.13 @ 4:04PM
If ignorance is bliss, you must be one of the happiest people in the world.
Michele San Pietro| 2.10.13 @ 9:46AM
That a person whose home is invaded by armed people with bad intentions has every right to protect his or herself should be clear to everybody. Quite unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be that way for some Liberal loonies (the TAS article really put it right) who find it more important to be anti-Americans at all costs and on every occasion.
spike59| 2.11.13 @ 6:13AM
when seconds count, the police are only minutes away
Vance P. Frickey| 2.11.13 @ 2:09PM
The whole point of gun control never was about reducing crime. It was and still is about increasing political control over the people - and anyone who can read at an eighth-grade level can tell us the Second Amendment is specifically against that sort of control over the People.
Freedomfighter_99| 2.13.13 @ 5:46AM
"...But give the Obamas and the Feinsteins of the world enough time..."
Back in the 80's a woman shot & killed an ex-husband who, in a drunken rage, broke into her home where she was living with a child, intent on doing her severe bodily harm. He chased them down into the basement where, cornered, she finally had no choice but to shoot the bum. A Massachusetts jury & judge JAILED her for some degree of MURDER because there was a window behind her that she COULD have used to escape out into the night with her child if she chose. This was a Dukakis judge and the Duk' had no problem with this decision. I still can't believe this was never an issue in the '88 campaign. Dumb Republicans!!!